Florida Prisoners Exposed to Cancer-Causing Chemicals
When Florida lawmakers approved a $116.5 billion annual state budget on March 8, 2024, it included $3.5 million for a new Alachua County water pipeline that is critical to the health and safety of state prisoners confined at Lowell Correctional Institution and the Florida Women’s Reception Center.
After prisoner Paula Grieve arrived at the Lowell prison in 2021, she noticed her thyroid problems became worse. She asked a relative to look into the water quality at the facility and learned that two years earlier state health officials had issued notices that well water in the area was contaminated with harmful chemicals.
Those chemicals, polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been linked to cancers and other diseases. They came from fire-suppressant foam used during training at the neighboring Florida State Fire College, discontinued years ago. However, PFAS are known as “forever” chemicals because they break down very slowly, persisting in the environment for decades. If ingested, they are particularly harmful to women.
But the women confined at the 2,400-bed Lowell lockup and the nearby 1,235-bed Reception Center had few options to avoid drinking, washing in and eating food prepared with the local groundwater. Bottled water sold at the prison canteen for $1.15 was cost-prohibitive in a state that pays most prisoners nothing for their labor. Curiously, bottled water was provided for filtering systems to homeowners in areas where the water tested above safe contamination levels, but not to the prisons.
Nor did prison officials take steps to protect prisoners from the unsafe water, even after the state Department of Environmental Protection notified its Department of Corrections (DOC) of the contamination in December 2022—not even after testing early the following year revealed PFAS at nearly three times the level considered safe.
DOC officials had previously claimed the water was tested and safe to drink. But an investigation by the Tampa Bay Times found that the testing looked only for bacteria such as E-coli, not for PFAS chemicals. Subsequent testing—the first in over five years—found low levels of contamination near both prisons, though still higher than a proposed limit for PFAS recommended by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Several Lowell prisoners filed grievances over the questionable water quality, seeking bottled water or filtration systems. Their requests were denied. “I think they feel we deserve less because we’re prisoners,” said one, Shauna Taylor. She added that she had never seen guards drink tap water at the prison.
Sung Kyun Park, an associate professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the University of Michigan, expressed concern over water contamination at the Lowell prison; a paper he previously co-authored about PFAS stated the chemicals “target the ovaries and represent a major risk for women’s health.” He recommended that prisoners exposed to the contaminated water receive blood tests.
Since 2021, Alachua County officials have repeatedly requested state and federal funding for a pipeline to provide safe drinking water to the Lowell area, but they had no success until this budget year. Until construction is completed, prisoners at the Lowell prison and Reception Center remain at risk.
Sources: Ocala Gazette, Ocala Star Banner, Tampa Bay Times
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